Five Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz by Olga Lengyel
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Book Reviews of Five Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz
Book Review: FIVE STARS FOR "FIVE CHIMNEYS" - A MUST READ!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Olga Lengyel has paid the highest price for the information she gives us all in Five Chimneys. She was there..in Auschwitz - Birkenau. What was her crime? Indeed, what was anyone's crime, to have one's life taken away from them and labelled an Enemy of the Third Reich. Her chilling testimony grips you immediately and holds your attention all the way through. Only one who was a prisoner of the infamous "Death Camps" will truly know what it was like to live the horrors shared in Five Chimneys. Everyone should read this book. Read it slowly, try to picture in your mind the sights Olga describes. Even doing so, one could never imagine the relentless fear of being 'selected' at any time without notice. No intelligent reader will feel unaffected after reading Five Chimneys. In fact one can easily see the clear message given to all of us: "All Life is Precious and none can be replaced."Book Review: Keep the truth alive--everywhere we look are others
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm very sorry for the reviewer that uses "gruesome" to describe such an example of someone who survived to bear witness. I have probably one of largest private collections of books on the Holocaust that runs into the hundreds. I am 70 and have known many of the survivors (especially since many were children who were 10 or more years younger than soldiers). Some would share their story with me, some could not, but I believe that one thing that kept many alive was the need TO BEAR WITNESS. One book on this subject is like one book on a bloody battle of WWII, it is ugly--as war usually is--but it doesn't begin to help understand the war (or the Holocaust). There is the individual, the killers and collaborators, the governments, the people on both sides, all of which, if studied for the deep meaning, tells us much about the "human" race.Book Review: So we shall never forget
Summary: 5 Stars
Having members of my family (two still alive) that survived Auschwitz this was a book that I felt I had to read. It is like many other books that I have read about the Holocaust but the first from strictly a women's account of Birkenau. It may be a difficult read for some because of the stark descriptions that exist. The story does not sugar-coat nor mince words. This is a true to life account as best as can be expressed. The book will compel the reader to pose questions of their own abilities to survive and withstand the horrors that the author did. This book is a fairly easy read and once you pick it up, it is hard to put down. We need books like this because the numbers of those who survived are becoming fewer and fewer and the words that they write are testimonials to TRUTH and must never ever be forgotten.Book Review: One of the best Holocaust accounts ever written
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was first published in English in 1947. It presents life and death in Auschwitz in great detail, and offers an excellent overview of the concentration camp world. The author's own story is gripping and heart-wrenching. The early date, 2 years after WWII ended, ensures that the author's memories of the camp are still lucid and the details very precise. Olga Lengyel studied to be a physician, and her informed analysis of the treatment meted out to inmates make this book special. I view this book as a Holocaust Studies "benchmark" - other accounts often fall short of its quality and level of detail. It is also significant as an account of a woman's experience. Until recently, women's Holocaust experiences were a rather neglected area.Book Review: Amazing and invaluable
Summary: 5 Stars
Although books on the Holocaust continue to be produced, and witnesses are continually gaining the strength to bear witness (thankfully!), I have not seen a book with the power of this one in years of searching.
Written just after the war - lending credibility to all those deniers who think that Auschwitz is a lie - the author gives tremendous detail of the struggle that was everyday life in the camp. Watching death all around her, it is amazing that she or anyone could garner the will to keep going with every new dawn.
If ever you search for a book that sums up the Holocaust, look no further.